Ikaruga

Dreamcast

Review by Rob "Dire 51"

Treasure/ESP

Shoot'em-up

Graphics: 9

Sound: 9

Gameplay: 9

Overall: 9

When Treasure first announced that one of their next games was going
under the working title of "Project RS-2", SHMUP fans around the
world sat up and took notice. After all, the only game Treasure ever did
with the initials RS was the legendary Radiant
Silvergun, considered by many to be one of the finest overhead
shooters ever created. The mere thought of a sequel to Radiant
Silvergun was enough to make most hardcore shooter fans salivate. To
me and a lot of other people, the thought of Treasure creating a sequel to
one of their games was odd (but welcome, of course), considering that
Treasure was formed because the programmers were tired of creating endless
sequels when they were working for Konami. Because of that, one of
Treasure's policies has always been "no sequels", no matter what
game it is. Apparently though, Treasure had gone back on that policy, and Radiant
Silvergun 2 was going to become a reality.

As it turns out, Radiant Silvergun 2 was not to be.
"Project RS-2" was completed, but instead of being the hoped for
sequel, it turned out to be an all new game. This new game does borrow a
lot from Radiant Silvergun, and it also borrows a concept from
another classic Treasure game, Silhouette Mirage. The end result?
One of the finest shooters to ever grace arcades - Ikaruga.
Unfortunately, to my knowledge the arcade game never made it out of Japan.
Then, in a move which made most Dreamcast-owning SHMUP fans ecstatic,
Treasure announced that they would be porting the game directly to the
system - which is in itself kind of odd, as the Dreamcast is officially
considered to be a dead system. But sure enough, it arrived on the
Dreamcast as promised, and even though it too was not intended for release
outside of Japan, at least now it's become infinitely more accessible to
the average SHMUP fan.

At first glance, Ikaruga does resemble a much prettier version
of Radiant Silvergun. It's an overhead shooter, just like Radiant
Silvergun, but aside from that there's many other things in the game
that - if you're familiar with Radiant Silvergun - you're bound to
notice. For example, the type font used for the text, the opening launch
of the Ikaruga fighter from its mothership, and the design of player one's
Ikaruga are all very reminiscent of the earlier game. It's quite obvious
that the designers had Radiant Silvergun in mind when they created Ikaruga.
However, Ikaruga is definitely a different game. It's more of a
twitch affair than RS was. The weapons system from RS is
completely gone - instead of having numerous weapons at your disposal, you
have one main gun and a special laser attack, which is very similar to the
lock-on lasers from Taito's Ray games: Rayforce (aka Layer
Section and Galactic Attack), Raystorm and Raycrisis:
Series Termination. There is a power meter for the lasers on the
screen so you can tell how much attack power you have - the more full it
is, the more lasers you can fire at once. You fill up the power meter by
absorbing enemy bullets, which your ship can do quite easily, depending on
what color it is.

This brings us to the main play mechanic of Ikaruga. This is the
concept that was borrowed from Silhouette Mirage: the ability to
change colors. Just like Silhouette Mirage's main character Shyna
Nera Shyna, who has the ability to switch between Silhouette and Mirage
(red and blue) attributes, the Ikaruga can switch colors at the touch of a
button. One side of the ship is white, and the other side is black. When
you're flying in white mode, you can absorb white bullets but can be
killed by black ones, and vice versa if you're in black mode. What color
you are will also determine how fast it will take you to destroy the
different enemy ships: for example, if you're in black mode you'll rip
through white ships like they were tinfoil, but it'll take you longer to
destroy black ships. The dual color feature also fits in with the chaining
feature in the game, which is a concept that goes back to Radiant
Silvergun - in RS, a lot of the enemies were either blue, red
or yellow. By blasting enemies that were the same color, you could rack up
a large amount of points. The same concept is used in Ikaruga -
shooting a number of either white or black enemies in succession will
cause you to rack up a nice amount of points. Being able to intelligently
use the dual color feature is what will insure your survival (and your
high scores) in Ikaruga. This feature can definitely make for one
hectic game, as you'll constantly be asking yourself what to do during the
course of a game. To quote Luke O'Sullivan: "Do I keep my ship
black and continue racking up a large white enemy killing chain combo, or
do I make things easier for myself by switching to the white attack mode
to absorb the incoming white bullets? Playing Ikaruga becomes a
matter of asking yourself such questions much of the time, and the
resulting adrenaline rush generated and skill required to master playing
this game make it an absorbing, exciting and unique experience."

Graphically, the game is astounding. Since Ikaruga was ported
directly from the arcade game, it brought everything it had in the arcades
to the Dreamcast, sacrificing nothing. To date, the best looking shooter
on the Dreamcast was Giga Wing 2. Ikaruga easily steps in
and takes the crown away from it. From the amount of texture and detail in
the backgrounds (check out the city in level 2 for a great example of
this) to the incredibly realistic boss explosions, Ikaruga just
oozes quality. The frame rate is nice and smooth as well. There is some
noticeable slowdown when a boss is exploding (the same thing happened in Radiant
Silvergun as well), but that doesn't last very long. The control is
also spot-on... the Ikaruga is extremely responsive to your commands. The
music is quite impressive as well, almost on a par with Radiant
Silvergun's. Treasure did include a sound test, although it's only
accessible if you either beat the easy mode without continuing or your
play time is over 15 hours. Speaking of options, the entire menu is in
English. In that respect, Ikaruga is extremely import-friendly.

Here's the downside - the game is tough. Between the sheer
amount of bullets of both colors flying at you and the parts of the game
that must be memorized to get through them, you'll be using up the three
continues you start with very quickly. It's not tough to the point of
being completely insane - there is a decent learning curve - but it will
test your patience most of the time. The good news is that you can gain
more credits the longer you play the game and the higher the score you
rack up. Thanks to the save feature, you can keep them too, so you don't
have to worry about losing them when you turn off the power.

The big question, of course, is should you go out and get this game?
Yes. Absolutely yes. If you liked Radiant Silvergun or you love a
good shooter, then definitely find a way to get this game - if you're like
me, then it will become one of the crown jewels of your Dreamcast
collection. For those of you that want to play Ikaruga but don't
have a Dreamcast, take heart - Infogrames has released the game for the
Nintendo GameCube in the U.S., and it's just as good as the Dreamcast
version.